"The Cider House Rules," based on the John Irving novel, is a fable that turns into a 1940s New England variation on Charles Dickens. It is also one dickens of an American movie.

There is an orphanage, abandonment, undeserved hardship and loneliness, and there is an innocent and profoundly decent hero, in an extraordinarily centered performance by Tobey Maguire. There are indelibly drawn characters, particularly orphanage director Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) and migrant worker Mr. Rose (Delroy Lindo).

The film may prove more Dickensian than some people bargained for in this holiday season because it deals with the subject of abortion -- but remember, Dickens never shied away from social issues.

In the careful unfolding of the story by director Lasse Hallstrom ("My Life as a Dog"), it is never strident, and any preachiness is an expression of particular characters.

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Smart radio talk-show hosts ban the subject of abortion because they know audiences long ago made up their minds and are sick of hearing any more about it. The subject is still likely to be divisive, but this film probably manages as well as any to put it in a compelling context.

In the English actor Caine's wonderful performance, St. Clouds orphanage director and crusty individualist Larch has not just an American accent but a Maine one. All on the side, Larch sniffs ether, sleeps with one of the nurses and performs abortions, on the theory that it will reduce the number of future orphans.

Wintry St. Clouds has several kinds of clients. A few are prospective adopters who come to inspect the children -- "I'm the best of all the kids," one of them declares -- and occasionally leave with one. Many others come to have their babies and leave them behind, and some expectant parents come for illegal abortions.

Homer Wells (Maguire) is an orphan who never found a family but grew to adulthood at St. Clouds and stayed. He now assists Larch. He knows how to deliver babies but is not a doctor. One thing he won't assist Larch in, however, is performing abortions.

He goes off "to see the world" with a couple, wartime pilot Paul Rudd and Charlize Theron, who had come for an abortion. His first job is picking apples with African American migrant workers and then working as a lobsterman during the offseason.

Maguire ("Pleasantville") has a direct gaze, uncannily calm presence and a throat-catching delivery of his lines. The tawny beauty of Theron ("Mighty Joe Young," "The Astronaut's Wife") is both wholesome and, in Homer's eyes, breathtaking. In one of the film's loveliest moments, MacGuire puts his hand to his own breast and says to her, "To look at you, it hurts."

As leader of the migrant apple pickers, Lindo brings solidity and authority to a role that turns into the key one in the drama.

The cider house rules are rules made by someone else. In particular, they are rules posted by the bosses for the migrant workers, who never pay attention to them: "We didn't write 'em and see no need to read 'em."

To entertain the kids at the orphanage, Homer reads them Dickens' "David Copperfield" and Dr. Larch shows them only one film, "King Kong," over and over. When Homer finally sees another movie, he declares, "It's no 'King Kong.' "

"The Cider House Rules" is no "King Kong" classic, but it does have that Dickensian spirit wherein simple acts of kindness can bring an audience close to tears. Throughout this film, sometimes just glimpsed at the edge of the frame, warmhearted women make their presence felt.